


I'll be the one if you want me to

by dragon_rider



Series: Hold on to me and never let me go [5]
Category: Dredd (2012)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Porn, Angst with a Happy Ending, Breaking Up & Making Up, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-15
Updated: 2014-10-15
Packaged: 2018-02-21 08:19:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2461298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragon_rider/pseuds/dragon_rider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bump in the road.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll be the one if you want me to

**Author's Note:**

> wow this is awkward. i was so sure someone had asked me to write more about these two and include anderson in the mix but i can't find the comment qq. also anderson's role in this is teeny tiny but very important!!
> 
> anyway um. here?
> 
> **YOU NEED TO READ PART 1 AND 2 OF THE SERIES OR THIS WON'T MAKE SENSE.**
> 
> *This happens before the happy ending in Chapter 10 of _Hear me calling out for you_.

It takes little effort for Joe to hold him up and fuck into him as if they did that every day, as if the clench of Alex around his cock somehow balanced the weight in his arms and made it all worth it.

There’s no wall against his back, nothing to lean on; he can only wrap his arms around the Judge’s shoulders and hold on for dear life.

Every thrust of Joe’s body into his sends a thrill up his spine in a succession too quick for him to moan or even grunt with it, all he can manage are obscene little gasps that he remembers vaguely from some amateur porn video he’s seen in the clubs he sometimes frequents in his line of work. He's never even dreamed of sounding like this, of feeling like this.

Alex isn’t keeping scores in his head, not at all, but this could easily be the best they've ever had and he might not be able to speak or voice anything at all but he ducks his head until his nose nuzzles Joe’s, kissing him messily and staying there to press wet, swollen lips against his cheek.

His orgasm has barely begun to build when he hears it; a low rumble in the night they’re sharing that crushes everything between them.

“ _James_ —“ Joe says and Alex doesn’t know what breaks his heart more; if the way his lover doesn’t even seem to _register_ what just came from his own mouth or how, if he does,  he decides to keep going as if nothing was wrong in the slightest.

He doesn’t stop the Judge, doesn’t push him away and yell at him to leave him alone.

He finds his voice and sobs instead, his body curling even tighter around Joe’s to hide in the crook of his neck.

No matter how much he burrows into him, Alex can’t forget the name, can’t unhear it.

***

 _Suck it up, you big cry-baby_ , he tells himself when days go by and Joe doesn’t mention what happened, _it was a slip. It was nothing. You’re okay. He loves you._

 _Does he?_ Alex can’t help but wonder. The Judge is a man of action, not of words, and Alex has never heard the words from him nor did he expect to do so.

And he was okay with that, damn it. He really was.

But suddenly he’s not; his name isn’t James, he’s not whom his lover seems to want in the most private corners of his mind, and apart from some amazingly acrobatic sex, he has nothing to reassure himself of his place in Joe’s heart.

If he has a place at all in there, if he’s not simply something Joe is using to lessen his loneliness and to fill the void another person— _James_ —left behind.

He looks in the mirror and for the first time in many years, he hates what he sees.

***

He’s about to bring it up many times over the course of the next two weeks but Joe—and every other Judge too—is getting his ass handed to him in the streets and it’s never a good time.

Whenever Alex isn’t fixing a wound Joe hastily patched up in the field, he’s on his knees or his stomach getting the pounding of his life and it doesn’t calm the itch he’s been feeling under his skin; it doesn’t stop him from feeling so thoroughly used he hates himself a little more each night he doesn’t say anything.

He’s more than aware that if he tries to talk about it, Joe will only close off. He will shut up like a clam and possibly slam the door of his apartment—and when did it start being _his_  again instead of theirs?—in Alex’s nose.

But it’s breaking him and he’s not strong enough to take it.

He’s never been strong enough to do many things, Lena always told him that.

If Joe kicks him out of his life, he will only have himself to blame.

***

“Joe,” Alex calls him one night, raising his chin from the warmth of his chest, “Joe, are you awake?”

The grunt he gets in reply could either be a _shut the fuck up, I’m trying to sleep_ or a simple _I am now, what?_

He hazards that either way, Joe is listening.

“Do you miss him?” he asks, voice almost as small as he feels, “Would you choose him over me, if he was here?”

 _That_ has Joe sitting up in the bed faster than a rain of bullets.

Alex can’t look at him. It hurts too much as it is; if he looked up and saw confirmation, it’d rip him apart.

“You said his name,” Alex elaborates when the silence drags.

He looks down at his hands in his lap and clutches the sheets, keeping them over his naked body in a poor attempt to retain some dignity.

He’s been fucked open and he’s leaking Joe’s seed; he can feel it as his shoulders hunch in the position he’s sitting so his dignity? Yeah, not so much of it left.

“You said his name,” he repeats, eyes shut tight for the seconds it takes his tears to be shoved back inside, “You were fucking me but you said his name and I need—I need to know what that means, Joe. You can’t stay quiet now, you have to talk to me. You have to say something.”

The Judge’s chest heaves. In another person, Alex thinks that might have been a sharp intake of breath, a gasp, a sob; it might have been something other than a minute quiver of solid muscles that are hiding everything beneath them.

Alex finally gathers the courage to look up and sees nothing but shock in his face; in the handsome features he hides under a helmet.

Then, Joe closes off just like Alex predicted he would.

“You have his body,” he says coldly, as if it were Alex’s fault, “That’s all it means.”

The blonde gets up from the bed so fast he almost tumbles down the stairs, shaky legs refusing to hold his weight for long seconds.

He pauses just enough to put on his underwear and turns to stare at Joe with disbelief and hurt cascading down his cheeks silently.

“This is _my_ body,” Alex roars, “He had _my_ body, not the other way around and if that’s all you want, then you’re not getting it anymore!”

He dresses in a whirlwind of unsteady movements, can’t hide the big and uneven scar on his side fast enough.

He storms down the stairs and Joe follows him, stark naked and brazen.

“What do you want?” the Judge grits out, “You should be rotting in the iso-cubes and I let you stay here instead! You think I’d do that for anyone else, Alex?”

Alex laughs bitterly. He can’t help it; Joe is the least loving person he’s ever known.

Sometimes he doesn’t even reach post-coital kindness and a part of him knows that it’s not his fault; that no one ever taught the Judge how to love, how to do anything but obey the law and force people to do the same.

It used to make him so sad. He wanted to show Joe the world of love and light he’s always been able to glimpse through the dark and grit of their reality.

He still wants to—oh, how he wants to—but not like this, not if this is what he’s going to get.

“I don’t want a love poem, Joe,” he replies, hiccuping, “I just want you to tell me what you see in me, just one little thing. Say something, something that it’s just mine and that he never gave you and I’ll stay. I’ll stay and I won’t ever mention this again.”

He waits almost twenty minutes for an answer that doesn’t come.

Joe calls out for him as he’s opening the door and it takes every tidbit of willpower Alex has not to turn around and run back to his arms.

“I know now,” he whispers at the doorframe, head down and mouth gasping for air that comes into his lungs but does nothing to soothe this horrible pain, “I know that you don’t love me but Joe, I—I do. I love you.”

He’s not helping his case, he knows it, but he can’t stop talking.

He wants Joe to understand even if it’s pointless now, even if it’s too late.

“I would’ve stayed even if you never said it back.”

***

It takes him a week to be anywhere close to functional after leaving Joe.

He doesn’t go back for his clothes and the few books he’s managed to collect in the six months they were together.

He’s used to losing his belongings by now and really, as hard as it is to find real books these days, the one thing he can’t stop mourning is the relationship he thought could take them everywhere, could save them from all the ugly and gruesome around them.

He looks for a new place. It’s small and barren and smells like shit but it’s his and the bathroom works so he considers himself fortunate and tries to move on.

It’s easier said than done.

***

He’s dyed his hair brown, let it grow and pierced his bottom lip and his left ear by the time he comes across with some useless propaganda of the Department of Justice.

Joe is in it, of course he is; in all his glory in a somewhat clean uniform and polished helmet. The displeased curl of his lips in the picture almost makes Alex laugh.

He looks around to make sure no one sees him and rips the poster off the wall, rolling it to put it away in his jacket.

He doesn’t care how fucking pathetic it is, he still misses Joe and if he’s never going to have a picture of them together then at least he’ll have this to remember him by.

***

Working is a struggle he faces every day.

It’s a struggle that feels worthless; he’s trained people in the Hall of Justice to do what he does. They’re doing it in several locations across Mega-City One. Crime rates are slowly but steadily decreasing.

He’s not needed. His vision will carry on without him.

It’s not even his vision, not really. This is his Father’s dream, his Father’s beliefs, his Father’s work. Alex is but the messenger of a long deceased, wayward Judge that tried to modify the system and got executed for his troubles.

He’s usually okay with that. He loved his Father; he taught Alex everything he knows before he died when he was eleven.

Now it’s just another hurt to add to his list, how he’s tried so hard to be someone all his life but he’s still no one even to the people he cares about the most.

***

He sleeps around so much thanks to his new whorish looks that he loses count of his bed partners.

It’s a wonder he doesn’t end up with syphilis or worse.

It’s a disappointment, too.

***

He’s debating whether or not a bit of LSD would really make things worse—doubtful, that; Alex has made damn sure his life is every bit as awful as it could ever be—fiddling with the vial in front of his eyes when there’s a raid and three Judges come in, guns blazing.

He can’t breathe until he realizes none of them is Joe.

He doesn’t dodge for cover but they don’t aim at him. When they’re done killing the ones they deem necessary, one of them checks him and asks him questions because he’s the only one that’s not high as a kite.

He can only be so lucky though.

The third Judge is Anderson. She speaks up for him when one of her colleagues insists on tossing him in the iso-cubes with the rest of the scumbag.

“This is Alexander Wright, creator of our new schooling system,” she says, “He was here for research, not to commit crimes.”

They let him be after that and stare at him as if Alex were a particularly interesting freak—which he is. One even hits on him but he doesn’t reciprocate.

He has one rule for his hook ups: no Judges.

Anderson approaches him when the other two leave to deal with the bodies and the prisoners.

“Anderson,” he greets woodenly.  
“Alex,” she calls him, her voice as soft as her eyes, “I told you, you can call me Cassandra.”  
Alex makes a face. “Yeah, let’s not go there,” he says, “We both know which side you are on.”

She sighs. She looks sad when she gestures him to follow and Alex hates himself but he’s dying to ask about Joe so he trails after her.

“How’s—how’s Dredd doing?” he croaks, sticking his hands in his pockets and doing a terrible job at looking aloof but then again, she’s a psychic so it hardly matters.

His heart might as well be beating _I miss him I miss him I miss him_. There’s nothing Alex can do to conceal that from her.

“Working,” Anderson replies, “But not as much as he’d like.”

Alex almost gets mad with that vague answer but he remembers it’s really all he has right to know and something twists painfully between his lungs instead.

“Good, huh,” he scratches the back of his head, stammers, “I’m—I’m glad he’s okay. I—I better get going, you know, night’s still young and I got places to be.”

She grips his arm before he can get away, her brown eyes boring into him.

“He’s not,” she corrects him, “He’s not okay. He’s always been reckless but he seems to carry a death wish everywhere he goes now and the Chief Judge isn’t pleased with him.”

Alex swallows, tonguing his piercing to calm his nerves. He doesn’t know where this is going but if Anderson asks him to go back to Joe, he will.

It’s the only thing he’s wanted to do all this time even if he’s not completely welcomed, even if he’s nothing but a shadow of someone who isn’t there for Joe anymore.

“He wants to look for you but he hasn’t forgiven himself for what he did,” Anderson confides, “It’s hard to be around him. His negativity is crushing, even for people without telepathy.”  
“You think he’d take me back?” Alex asks, a hand tugging at his hair, “Looking like this?”  
Anderson doesn’t answer his question. She looks like she’s in the verge of tears. “I didn’t want to interfere, Alex, but it hurts me to see how much you both need each other and how lost you are. I can’t tell you that he loves you, it’s not my place, but he _needs_ you. He really does.”

He’s tempted to ask her to elaborate, to tell him whether Joe needs _him_ or just needs the person he’s grown accustomed to be with but he bites his tongue and accepts a ride to Joe’s block instead.

“Cassandra?” he stops her when she’s about to speed away in her Lawmaster, “Thank you.”

She smiles and shakes her head, her blonde curls brushing her face.

“Thank me after you’ve fixed it, Alex,” she says, “Good luck.”

***

He knocks, tentative, and vows to himself he won’t run away this time—not even if Joe outright rejects him.

He will stay by his side and work his way back to his heart from zero if he has to.

There’s a bottle of scotch in the Judge’s hand when he opens. It’s half empty and he reeks of booze but his eyes and his balance are as sharp as ever.

He examines Alex from head to toe and lingers in the bits that are different; his hair, his earring, the ring piercing in his lip.

Other than that, Joe doesn’t react at all.

“Hey,” he greets, licking his lips nervously, “Can I come in?”

Joe lets him in and takes another swing of the bottle, seemingly uninterested in his presence.

Alex looks around and everything is the same. His books sit in the same corner that he left them, just by the couch.

He could bet his clothes are still in the closet, that the stuff in the kitchen is still arranged the way he likes it.

He feels like a douche. God, he made Judge Dredd— _the_ Judge Dredd—turn into a miserable drunk.

He brushes the thought aside quickly. He can wallow in guilt later.

“So,” he speaks, infusing confidence into his voice that he doesn’t feel at all, “Do you have an answer for me? It’s been long enough, I think, I’m sure you have something by now.”

A bit of incredulity creeps into Joe’s eternally-grouchy expression.

“Right?” Alex presses. The smile on his face is forced but he does his best to keep it in place.

It’s been over two months and he’s not fishing for an answer, not really, he’s just teasing Joe.

He’ll make do with his lover calling him by his name, not by anyone else’s.

As soon as he’s within arm’s reach, Joe practically throws the bottle on the coffee table and cups his face to kiss him hard.

His palms are sweaty and his breath tastes so much like alcohol Alex swears he’ll get drunk on nothing but licking into him. Joe wastes no time in tugging the ring in his bottom lip with his mouth and makes him cry out in more surprise than pain.

He kinda likes it, the sting the Judge leaves behind and how he sucks it and kisses it better right afterward. That never happened when someone else tried it out, which is really— _really_ —worrisome.

Judging by the growl Joe lets out as he trails wet kisses up to his ear to swirl his tongue around the ring there, he kinda loves it.

They don’t make it to the bed. Or even to the couch that’s literally right _there_.

At some point, the bottle crashes to the floor and spills everywhere. Alex finds himself in its place, sprawled on the coffee table, and relishes how incredibly desperate Joe seems to be as close to him as it’s humanly possible; smelling his neck, his hair, pulling his clothes down or up in order to reach the parts of his body that he wants.

When he takes Alex into his mouth and sucks, it’s sudden and almost painful in its intensity.

He moans loud enough to be heard through the walls. Someone whacks the ceiling, complaining about the noise. Joe seems encouraged by his reaction and utterly indifferent about anyone else and keeps going down on him with abandon, nose buried in his pubic hair and both hands gripping Alex’s thighs roughly enough to leave imprints on his pale skin.

He makes Alex come so hard he’s out of it for a moment. He comes to the feel of Joe’s broad fingers scissoring inside him and can barely lift his hips to help to get rid of this clothes for good, that’s how boneless he is.

It’s too dry to be entirely comfortable, even with the saliva Joe keeps spitting to move things along. Thankfully Alex still has a couple of small packages of lube in the inner pocket of his jacket and he still has said jacket on so he palms them and tosses them in the Judge’s general direction.

Joe raises an irate eyebrow at him, silently demanding an explanation.

Alex dares him to demand one _aloud_ , residual anger flaring deep within him at the insinuation.

“No, you’re not the only man I’ve ever been with. You’re not even the first,” he taunts, “If you’re not okay with that, I can— _nnngh_.“

Joe interrupts him, crooking his fingers just right and brushing exactly the right place in him with bold fingertips to make him whimper with want.

He keeps them pressed as if trying to milk Alex and he’s _this_ close to sobbing because it’s too much when his lover finally withdraws to tear the lube open with his teeth and pour it onto his stiff cock.

Alex clumsily takes his jacket off, staring. He can’t believe he forgot Joe was _that_ big. He moans shamelessly just watching the Judge slicking himself up intently, watching his hips rutting back and forth with just the idea of being inside of him again.

Joe is many things, but a tease is not among them. He’s driving into him in no time, getting him nicely to the edge of the table with a hand gripping his ass and the other holding on to it so he can get enough leverage to go deep.

Alex closes his legs around him, crossing his ankles on the small of Joe’s back, and uses his elbows to push right back. He barely notices his lover is still fully dressed, the burn of a zipper brushing his ass a distant sensation among the pleasure Joe is making him feel.

They’re of a height and kissing like this is easy and messy but it doesn’t last long, Joe’s hips going too fast to allow them to slot their mouths in the right way.

The coffee table’s legs break—maybe. If not, they squawk a lot. Alex’s not sure. Their moans and groans are too loud to tell.

The second time, he comes shouting Joe’s name and passes out.

***

They’re in bed when he wakes up, somehow clean and exceedingly sated, if sore in more than one place.

His lover’s body is curled possessively around him, soft cock nestled in the cleft of his ass and arms secured around his hips and waist; his lips glued to the spot beneath his ear and his nape, kissing and licking the skin there over and over.

Alex whimpers low in his throat, almost mewling at the attention. His eyelids droop and he’s ready to go back to sleep when he hears it.

“You’re different, Alex,” Joe murmurs, voice hoarse and fucked-out, forehead pressed against his hair, “Softer, but more resilient than James ever was. You don’t leave me alone, not even when I order you to. You never give up on me, not even when you should.”  
“Joe!“ Alex exclaims, breathless with both joy and astonishment, “You don’t have to—“  
“It was stupid to mix you,” the older man keeps going, digging his teeth the slightest bit into his flesh to silence him, “I don’t expect you to forgive me but I promise you, it won’t happen again.”

Alex tries to say something only to have another hickey on his neck. It looks like when Joe decides to speak, he’s the only one allowed to so Alex gives in, telegraphing his emotions to him with his body; pressing back to him, absolutely slack and charmed.

He waits until Joe is almost asleep to turn around and kiss him deeply but slowly enough not to rouse him completely.

“I forgive you,” he swears between kisses, “I forgave you as soon as I saw you.”

The last of the tension leaves Joe’s frame.

They kiss some more and then sleep until dawn.

**Author's Note:**

> Have you seen that ep of CSI:Miami with Chris Pine in it? If you have, yes, I am guilty. I mostly ripped Alex's new look from there.
> 
> Some visual aids [here](http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/17100000/CSI-Miami-chris-pine-17141166-1280-720.jpg) and [here](http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/17100000/CSI-Miami-chris-pine-17142330-1280-720.jpg).


End file.
